Individual physical computers, also known as physical machines, are often configured to exchange data with one another over a computer network, also known as being networked together. In order for networked physical machines to communicate over the network, various network settings may need to be configured. These network settings may designate various roles performed by the physical machines, addresses of the physical machines, and port rules for the physical machines, among other things.
Physical machines face a myriad of threats to their smooth and continuous operation, including threats to the data stored in storages of the physical machines. A storage is computer-readable media capable of storing data. In order to mitigate these threats, a backup of the data in a storage may be created at a particular point in time to enable the restoration of the data at some future time. Such a restoration may become desirable, for example, if the storage experiences corruption of its stored data, if the storage becomes unavailable, or if a user wishes to create a second identical storage.
When a user desires to restore the storages of multiple networked physical machines from backups, the restoration to storages on new physical machines can involve a number of challenges, including taking an unacceptable amount of time. In order to shorten the amount of time it takes to restore the storages of multiple networked physical machines from backups, a user may restore the backups to virtual storages on virtual machines.
A virtual machine is a software-based emulation of a physical machine in a process generally known as virtualization. A virtual machine generally operates based on the computer architecture and functions of a physical machine. A hypervisor is computer software, computer firmware, or computer hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor is running one or more virtual machines is generally referred to as a host machine, while each virtual machine running on the hypervisor is generally referred to as a guest virtual machine. A hypervisor generally creates a guest virtual machine by accessing a virtual machine file, which may be a backup of a storage of a physical machine, that contains or references data that is used to create the guest virtual machine. The hypervisor also generally presents the guest virtual machines with a virtual operating platform and manages the execution of operating systems and network settings of the guest virtual machines.
One common problem encountered by a user when utilizing a hypervisor to restore storages of multiple networked physical machines from backups to virtual storages on virtual machines is the time and effort involved for the user to manually boot the virtual machines and manually configure the network settings during the virtualization. For example, in a disaster scenario where multiple networked physical machines have become unavailable due to an earthquake, fire, or other disaster, the user may be stressed and consequently find it very difficult to clearly think through the manual booting of the virtual machines and the manual configuring of network settings during the virtualization. As a result, slow user performance and user errors during a restoration in a disaster scenario are commonplace. Slow user performance and user errors during the manual booting of virtual machines and manual configuring of network settings during virtualization can increase downtime, thereby further exacerbating the detrimental effects of the disaster.
The subject matter claimed herein is not limited to embodiments that solve any disadvantages or that operate only in environments such as those described above. Rather, this background is only provided to illustrate one example technology area where some embodiments described herein may be practiced.